More and more mothers are continuing their football careers after the birth of their children – at the European Championships, Team Mama could also play alone, including a few substitutes. The challenge for women remains great – but the clubs and associations are slowly living up to their responsibility.
The first way led Irene Paredes directly to the grandstand. The captain of the Spanish national team went to her wife Lucia Ybarra and their son. And after a warm hug and kiss for Mateo, Paredes seemed to have almost forgotten the frustration of the previous 90 minutes when Spain lost 2-0 to Germany. The boy, who was just ten months old, put a warm smile on the face of the tough defender.
Paredes and Ybarra are on everyone’s lips in Spain. One leads the women’s soccer team, the other is a national hockey team player – and competed in the EuroHockey Indoor Championship II just four months after giving birth to Mateo and while she was still breastfeeding.
There are five mothers in the Iceland squad alone
Just as Ybarra has made her way back onto the national hockey team, so are more and more women soccer players. There have never been so many mothers as there are now at the European Championships – a whole team including a few substitutes could get Team Mama up and running. In the Iceland squad alone, led by ex-Wolfsburg player Sara Björk Gunnarsdottir, there are five mothers.
To be honest, being a mother and being a professional soccer player is the best job ever.
“To be honest, being a mother and a professional footballer is the best job ever,” Gunnarsdottir told Sportschau. The 31-year-old is dating an Icelandic soccer player who, like her, played in France. To bring more focus to the issue of soccer-playing moms, the midfielder, who will join Juventus after the tournament from Olympique Lyon, agreed to a suggestion from her kit supplier to make a documentary. Because there is a but in her sentence: “Everything is possible, but the players need the support of their clubs and also the national teams.”
Her family traveled to England with the Icelandic record player – and her son Ragnar is also allowed to come to the hotel if she thinks it is necessary: ”It gives me a lot of energy.”
FIFA grants maternity leave
Last year, FIFA issued new rules: now there is 14 months of paid maternity leave at two-thirds of salary. Plus the right to return after pregnancy, to breastfeed and to have access to independent medical advice. So a start has been made.
“I am pleased that mothers are now better protected by law and contract, and that thanks to this security, more women are confident of continuing their careers,” said former German international Babett Peter. “However, I think it’s still a brave step. Without help, especially from family, it’s very difficult to juggle everything.”
Babette Peter: “We really wanted children”
Like Paredes and Ybarra, Peter and her partner Ella Masar, who gave birth to the child, also have a son together. “We really wanted kids – we were the right age and we’re the guys for it,” said Peter. “With us as a family it was somehow clear that Ella would have the child – and also that she would not continue her career. Our family planning is not yet complete.”
The 118-cap international was captain of Real Madrid last season and has now hung up her boots. Ella Masar, a professional soccer player in Wolfsburg, among other places, has accepted a job as an assistant coach at the US first division club Kansas City – her contract runs until the end of the year. Then Peter also wants to have completed her master’s degree in sports business. How it will continue after that is still open.
Voss-Tecklenburg attacked as a kicking mother
The fact that a German national player has a child herself and then continues her career is actually old hat. None other than national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg demonstrated it in the early 1990s. But the time was definitely different.
“I was already separating from my daughter Dina’s father. I still played in Siegen, worked in Lüdenscheid. I took Dina with me all the time, fed her on the autobahn. She just ran with me,” recalled the 54-year-old in the documentation “Born for this”. When she was at big tournaments, “I knew my child was at home and was crying too, missed mom”.
Today’s national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg with her daughter Dina in 2014.
But as if that wasn’t hard enough, she also had to listen to reproaches: “How can you do that? You’re a bad mother. You left the child alone.” The fact that the little one was with her aunt and her two cousins didn’t count. According to the prevailing opinion at the time, mothers had another role to play.
DFB helps twin mother and national goalkeeper Schult
Babett Peter still clearly remembers the beginning of his own career in the 2000s: “Back then, society was much less about women’s rights and equality. Now these issues are much more present. I think it’s good that sport is better aware of its responsibility fair. But it remains a great challenge.”
One that more and more women are accepting. After the birth of her twins, Almuth Schult has once again become an outstanding goalkeeper. In England, Melanie Leupolz is missing a pregnant player – according to Voss-Tecklenburg, the best reason to cancel the tournament.
Schult also reported on the progress in Germany: “The DFB has dealt with the issue. In February they gave the signal that they would give me a subsidy for childcare. And they also made it possible for the first time for the children been able to get together with my husband for a few days.” According to Voss-Tecklenburg, it is nice “that the DFB is now addressing this issue and that we have found ways, even if they are not yet ideal”.
Schult: “You can’t have such a stupid job”
But Schult had to experience first-hand how difficult the way back is despite the increased support. It was very hard work for her to come back so strongly. “If you could laugh, if you could laugh heartily, then it was a good day,” she looked back. Her body had to get used to the stress of goalkeeper training with the frequent bouncing on the ground after the break.
Almuth Schult in training with the German national team.
On some days she already thought: “You can’t have such a stupid job.” Canceling the comeback attempt – that was out of the question for Schult.
The Schult twins are welcome guests on the national team
She even opposed voices in her own family (“She’ll stop anyway.”), which affected her emotionally – and not only returned to the goal of VfL Wolfsburg, but also to the circle of the national team. However, she has lost her regular place. Merle Frohms had presented himself too strongly in the meantime.
But the national coach, who is now a grandmother, also sees Schult’s children as an asset. “Martina can’t get past this table without stopping and playing with the kids,” reported national team colleague Lena Oberdorf.
The 20-year-old will also be happy when the twins come to England this weekend: “As soon as there are children, everyone’s maternal instincts go up.”